October 22, 2009

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce appears to have shut down a hoax web site set up by the Yes Men, a group of pranksters who held a fake news conference on Monday where they purported to be Chamber officials reversing the business lobby's stand against cap-and-trade climate change legislation.

On Wednesday afternoon, the real Chamber filed a copyright violation notice with the internet provider for the hoax site, which was at www.chamber-of-commerce.us, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The foundation, an online civil liberties group, is fighting back on behalf of the Yes Men.

"Parody is a well-established right, protected under copyright law and the First Amendment," EFF lawyer Matt Zimmerman said in a statement. "Hopefully, the Chamber will reconsider its position and realize that such strong-arm tactics are inappropriate and counter-productive."

As of this writing, the site was unreachable.

Asked about the takedown notice, the Chamber sent a statement it issued Monday decrying the hoax.

"Public relations hoaxes undermine the genuine effort to find solutions on the challenge of climate change," Chamber spokesman Thomas Collamore said. “We will be asking law enforcement authorities to investigate this event. Beyond that, the Chamber will simply continue to focus on a positive vision for getting people back to work and growing our economy.”